Call tracking

ABSTRACT

There are disclosed systems and methods for facilitating communications between individuals and enterprises and in particular, to methods and systems for tracking and attributing customer and/or customer prospect online and offline communications in association with a marketing campaign.

RELATED APPLICATION INFORMATION

This patent application is a continuation of and claims priority fromU.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/379,200 entitled “CALL TRACKING”filed Dec. 14, 2016, which claims priority to provisional patentapplications: Application No. 62/269,759 filed Dec. 18, 2015, which isincorporated herein by reference.

NOTICE OF COPYRIGHTS AND TRADE DRESS

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains materialwhich is subject to copyright protection. This patent document may showand/or describe matter which is or may become trade dress of the owner.The copyright and trade dress owner has no objection to the facsimilereproduction by anyone of the patent disclosure as it appears in thePatent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwisereserves all copyright and trade dress rights whatsoever.

BACKGROUND Field

This disclosure relates to facilitating communications over network.

Description of the Related Art

Although there has been a significant shift in the past decade towardsthe purchase of goods and services online, there are still a number ofproducts and services purchased over the phone. However, many of theseover-the-phone purchases are prompted by advertisements and promotionson the Internet. For media buyers, it is difficult to manage and measurethe return on their investment for online, offline, and/or mobileadvertisements that result in calls. In many cases, revenue is lost whena promotion results in a phone call that cannot be tracked back toand/or attributed to the media buyer or web property carrying theadvertisement.

Currently, there are organizations that publish content of interestand/or provide certain software programs/applications to an audience ofusers/subscribers. Many of these organizations and distribution partners(termed “affiliates” or “publishers”), generate revenue throughadvertisements displayed in association with their web content and/orapplications. For example, the advertisements on a web page may containonly a limited amount of information but include a link to advertiserweb sites that provide further details often including a phone address(e.g., a phone number). In another example, a preinstalled ordownloadable application may contain certain promotions, the promotionsthemselves may contain a phone address or may provide a link to anadvertiser's web site often including a phone number. In anotherexample, a customer or customer prospect may receive an email from anorganization and/or an organization that publishes content of interest.The email may include a phone address or may provide a link to anadvertiser's web site often including a phone number. If acustomer/customer prospect calls the phone address to make a purchasefrom the advertiser, instead of making the purchase online,conventionally it may be difficult or impossible to determine whichadvertisements/promotions resulted in that lead. Such sales/leadtracking and Return On Investment (ROI) optimization is particularlychallenging when there are multiple advertisements displayed ondifferent online advertising channels while the sales transaction takesplace in another medium (e.g., wireline and wireless telephony). In thecase where a single advertisement is associated with a designated phoneaddress and a suitable call tracking solution is in place, theadvertisement's performance may be easily determined; all calls to thephone address and all sales that resulted from the calls are driven bythe aforementioned ad. However, it is rare that an advertising campaignonly consists of a single ad and that the single ad is placed in asingle advertising channel. Further, it may be impractical due to alimited number of available phone numbers to provide a one-to-onerelationship between a promotion and a customer/customer prospect.Therefore, a business with a series of online, offline, and/or mobilepromotions (e.g., separate media outlets) will not likely be able todetermine which advertisements were the most effective if all of theadvertisements drive calls to one phone address.

There are various marketing channels that can be used to promote goodsand services including, for example, blogs, social networking, web pagevisits, search, etc. Coincident with online marketing channel evolutionis the emergence of software-based tools that are focused on automatingthe marketing process within these various channels. This automationincludes marketing campaign creation, launch, tracking, and reporting.While early, and generally rudimentary, marketing automation tools wereinitially developed by a company internally to facilitate marketing ofthe products they developed, more recently an industry of thirdparty/outsourced marketing automation tools has emerged that providemore sophisticated tools, that may be used in conjunction with certainonline marketing channels, and are capable of providing tracking andreporting. Disadvantageously, the conventional marketing automationtools provided by these third-parties are generally limited to theonline/Internet medium, have not been able to address the challengesposed by telephony integration, and provide limited or no telephonyintegration.

Many or most sales do not occur in response to a customer prospect'sfirst interaction with a company. Generally, there are multiple customerprospect interactions before a customer decides to purchase a product orservice. Conventionally, marketing campaigns include a series of one ormore actions to build a relationship with a customer prospect in orderto get the customer prospect to actually purchase the product orservice.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 illustrates a first example system architecture.

FIG. 2 illustrates a second example system architecture.

FIG. 3 and FIG. 4 illustrate an example first operatingenvironment/process for a marketing tracking and communications system.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example image representation of a phone number.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The terms campaign and marketing campaign, as described herein, areintended to encompass generally any business work flow process used toachieve a specific objective. Optionally, a campaign includes as anattribute a collection of discreet events, states, stages, or steps(e.g., the sending of an email message to a customer or customerprospect may be considered an event or be associated with a marketingstage). Optionally, conditions and/or events cause state, stages, orstep transitions. Optionally, customer prospects flow through amarketing campaign and may exit a campaign in response to a condition orevent such as a sale to a customer prospect, a phone call to or from acustomer prospect, the completion of a series of communications to acustomer prospect, etc. The terms campaign and marketing campaign asused herein are intended to be used interchangeably. For example, acampaign, may include a marketing campaign to promote a good or servicefor sale. In another example campaign, a marketing campaign is used topromote a company's brand. In yet another example, a notificationcampaign is used to notify a customer/user of a change in a company'sterms and conditions. While the term campaign may be used herein withrespect to certain embodiments for illustrative purposes, other types ofcampaigns may be used as well.

The terms phone number, telephone number, phone address, mobile devicenumber, etc., as described herein, may refer to phone addresses that areentered/selected by users and/or customer prospects and used by public(e.g., wireline and wireless using E.164 numbering) and private networks(e.g., using Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) address and attendantparameters) to route calls/communications and create a network pathbetween a called party and calling party. Optionally, the network pathincludes a transmission path for voice data and/or fax data. The termphone address is in intended to also generally encompass an addressidentifying a party to whom (or a destination to which) a voice call isbeing originated (e.g., a phone number, a SIP address, etc.). While theterm phone number may be used herein with respect to certain embodimentsfor illustrative purposes, other types of phone addresses may be used aswell.

As described above, there is a need to manage and track the sales/leadsand conversion-to-purchase associated with advertisements. Certainexample embodiments of a marketing and tracking system described hereinenable a business to track phone-based sales through unique callprocessing techniques, number allocation, number pooling, web userinterfaces, and reporting. In addition, certain embodiments of themarketing and tracking system can perform certain call enhancements(e.g., interactive voice response, call filtering, etc.), help managecall volumes, and/or calculate affiliate/publisher payments.

Generally, unique promotional telephone numbers (or other types ofunique contact addresses) may be used to track performance acrossmultiple media outlets. By utilizing unique phone numbers or othercontact addresses, the marketing and tracking system tracks thepotential customer's experience from the initial advertisement, toconversion, (specific to a designated media outlet). For online,offline, and/or mobile advertisements, a deeper level of tracking isavailable. By associating custom tracking parameter values thatdistinguish the attributes of the traffic source to the call itself, theuser can then easily determine tracking granularity down to theindividual advertisement level. This method of online, offline, and/ormobile tracking can be applied to, for example, search engine marketingor any online ad placements. In order to function at a large scale,accommodating thousands of simultaneous users, entire “pools” or groupsof numbers, termed “RingPools”, are allocated to a specific online,offline, and/or mobile media outlet (e.g., paid search keywords). Phoneaddresses may be accessed from a RingPool by an operator/user and/orphone addresses via a user interface of a marketing and tracking systemor may be assigned automatically from a RingPool by the marketing andtracking system.

The RingPool phone number acts as a “middle man” joining the ad and itsattributes to the call. Optionally, the association of the RingPoolphone number and the advertisement (e.g., a paid search ad) occursdynamically at the time the advertisement is rendered for display to aweb surfer/consumer. When a user clicks on an ad, a RingPool phonenumber is assigned (e.g., dynamically assigned) so that when the numberis called, the ad's attributes are collected. Upon completion, the callis reported in association with these attributes.

The marketing and tracking system phone number pool, RingPool,optionally includes toll-free numbers, long distance, and local phonenumbers (phone numbers geographically local to a subscriber within forexample the same area code and/or a local NXX). Optionally, the phonenumber pool includes phone numbers with extensions. Optionally, phonecalls to the phone numbers can be domestic or international and caninclude landline, mobile, and VoIP numbers or other contact addresses.Optionally, phone calls to the numbers within the pool route through thePM system and terminate in various networks including landline, mobile,and VoIP networks. Optionally, routed or bridged calls terminate inbusinesses (e.g., sales and/or customer support call centers) and/or toone or more user devices (e.g., wireline or mobile devices).

Optionally, phone addresses are only recycled/reused after all of theRingPool numbers have been used in order to maintain the association aslong as possible and optionally the marketing and tracking system onlybreaks the join/association between the number and theadvertisement/keyword after the configurable, specified lifespan hasexpired. Optionally, the hierarchy of numbers used in the recyclingprocess is determined by the amount of activity. Phone numbers with theleast amount of activity (e.g., call activity) are recycled first whilethe most popular advertisements and number pairings are preserved. Oncea certain amount (e.g., all) of the numbers within a pool have been usedand the assigned minimum time has not been exceeded, the marketing andtracking system selects a number, which is designated within the numberpool, to serve as an “overflow” number. An aspect of the “overflow”number is that the call still goes through to the correct advertiser,but the fact that it's coming in through the overflow number alertsadvertisers (e.g., campaign managers) to the fact that they're out ofnumbers.

Optionally, phone addresses are not actually allocated to the pool untilneeded. So, for example, a pool of 250 numbers might only contain 100actual phone numbers that were assigned for tracking at that instant;the remaining 150 “slots” in the pool of 250 would not be filled withactual phone numbers until later and/or when they are needed. Thisallows more efficient use of phone addresses in aggregate since not allpools in the system will have reached their full potential size at anygiven time.

When the number pool is exhausted an alarm and/or notification (e.g.,provided via a Web page, an instant message (e.g., SMS, MMS), an email,a phone call, or otherwise) is optionally triggered alerting the user(e.g., a campaign manager) to increase the size of the RingPool.Optionally, the marketing and tracking system uses other numberrecycling activity-based techniques including but not limited to: roundrobin; last in, first out; first in, last out; highest activity; lowestactivity; and/or other weighted distribution methods. Optionally, themarketing and tracking system can be configured to maintain the numberassociation during the life of the campaign, even if the availablenumbers within a pool exhausts (e.g., by configuring the lifespan of thejoin to exceed the length of the ad campaign). Optionally, the marketingand tracking system determines using one or more number usage techniquesif a RingPool is provisioned with an excess quantity of numbers (e.g.,if one or a group of numbers have never been used over a configurableperiod of time or if only a certain percentage of numbers within thenumber pool have been used over a configurable period of time). Excessnumbers/phone addresses can be removed from the RingPool and madeavailable to other RingPools. Optionally, numbers from a terminatedRingPool are placed in an idle or reserved state for either aconfigurable period of time (e.g., 30 days), until the number of callsto the idle numbers falls below a configurable threshold, or other idleperiod management technique. Optionally, the marketing and trackingsystem plays a reserved state audible prompt when a call is placed to areserved state number (e.g., an out-of-service message). Optionally, themarketing and tracking system delivers the call to a configured callcenter destination (e.g., as an alternative to and/or in addition toplaying an out-of-service message) and a party (e.g., the marketing andtracking system provider) may receive monetary compensation fordelivering the call.

Optionally, the marketing and tracking system provides a collection ofdetailed reports on calls for each advertisement and with the specifickeyword or other parameters used to track it. Optionally, the marketingand tracking system also provides a search engine and a search stringused when keywords are tracked.

Optionally, the marketing and tracking system manages the phone addressallocation, call enhancements, and affiliate/publisher call trackingover the course of an advertiser's campaign. There are several types ofexample marketing campaigns and different combination of examplecampaigns described below. Campaign types may include but are notlimited to: direct advertising—a campaign supported by the marketing andtracking system but not promoted by affiliates/publishers; regularpay-per-call—phone-based ad campaign promoted by affiliates/publishers;Cost-Per-Acquisition (CPA)—phone-based ad campaign promoted byaffiliates/publishers in which payouts are based upon whether the callresulted in a sale; RingOut—outbound phone-based ad campaign in whichcalls are placed to consumers. The marketing and tracking system alsosupports pay-per-call campaigns in which a Network manager/userorganizes and manages one or more campaigns on behalf of one or moreadvertisers. Further, the system supports bundled campaigns in which auser (e.g., a Network manager of multiple campaigns) provides publishersand affiliates access to more than one ad campaign that share a commontheme or “vertical” (e.g. insurance) and the user configures theallocation of incoming calls (e.g., calls generated by publishers andaffiliates) across the bundle of advertiser campaigns. Optionally, themarketing and tracking system further supports syndicated campaigns,where calls cascade from one network, advertiser, or publisher toanother. The calls may optionally be connected using the publictelephone network. In a preferred embodiment, the audio (or fax/data)streams are directly routed by the platform between the final endpoints, thus eliminating telecom costs for the intermediate call legsand also increasing audio (or fax/data) quality since there is noadditional voice packet delay for the syndicated call legs. The platformcan manage payouts and track payout qualifications such as acrossnetworks where it would not be feasible or cost effective for disparatesystems to do so.

Advertisers and/or Marketers can also set up campaigns where certaintarget budgets are established for a campaign and/or time periods withina campaign. Optionally, an advertiser may restrict the number of callsfor a specified budget (e.g., threshold dollar amount) and/or for agiven period (e.g., a daily call cap budget). Optionally, specifiedbudget allocations can be reset daily, weekly, monthly, or with budgetreplenishment. Warning notifications and confirmation notifications areoptionally automatically sent to the campaign manager, and calls thatexceed threshold caps may get blocked (e.g., with an announcementmessage) or re-routed until the specified reset/replenishment occurs.

Optionally, the marketing and tracking system is provided by a singleprovider to an end user. Optionally, the marketing and tracking systemis provided by a conventional marketing and tracking platform providerand the telephony features are provided by a separate applicationsprovider which may be configured to integrate with the marketing andtracking platform. In the latter case, the application, optionallypurchased or licensed separately, is hosted and operates within thedatabase and infrastructure of the conventional marketing and trackingplatform. In certain telephony integrated marketing environments it ishighly desirable to enable the use of phone addresses (e.g., a telephonenumbers) as a means of tracking customer prospect interactions,including interactions across a plurality of customer prospect accesscomputing devices.

Before a sales/marketing campaign can be launched it needs to bedesigned by, for example, a marketing manager. Campaign design includesbut is not limited to establishing target sales objectives, choosingcampaign offline/online media and channels, defining campaign elements,campaign messages, etc. Optionally, the defined campaign elements and/ormedia elements include, for example, direct mail templates, emailtemplates, web landing pages, web forms, web ads, search, videoprograms, mobile ads, social media, microblogging, social networkaccount, virtual events, etc.

Optionally, the defined campaign element and/or media element areassigned a phone address by a user/operator via the marketing andtracking platform. Optionally, the defined campaign element and/or mediaelement are assigned a phone address automatically by the marketing andtracking platform. Optionally, the automatic assignment of a phoneaddress to a campaign and/or media element occurs at least partly inresponse to a triggering event or condition. Example triggeringconditions may include the display of a web-based landing page to acustomer prospect, the opening of an email, a visit to a socialnetworking page, or the download of an application or media by acustomer prospect. The triggering event or condition of a numberassignment (and which type of phone address to use (e.g., toll-free orlocal)) can further be configured by an operator via a set of filters(or additional conditions) which are established based at least in partupon information collected, known, or accessible by the marketing andtracking platform about the customer prospect (e.g., explicit andimplicit attributes used in lead scoring and/or a lead score, asdescribed elsewhere herein). For example, in a marketing campaign, ifthe customer prospect is known or determined to be younger thanseventeen (a customer prospect attribute), a phone address may not beassigned (a filter) in an initial introductory email (a media element)or only a toll-free number might be assigned (a type of phone address).Optionally, as further described herein, the campaign/media elements,triggering events or conditions, customer attributes, lead scores, etc.,are used to fixedly or dynamically (e.g., in substantially real-time)route inbound and outbound calls to configured destinations/phoneaddresses, optionally, wherein the call/communications is bridgedthrough the system for the duration of the communication/call. Furtherwith respect to the assignment of a phone address to a marketingcampaign, optionally, a phone address is manually assigned by anoperator/user and/or the phone address is automatically assigned to astage in a marketing campaign, wherein stages in a marketing campaign(and/or marketing funnel) can include but are not limited to one or moreof the following stages: a null state (e.g., a state prior to campaignentry), pre-launch campaign or staging state (e.g., a customer prospect(including a customer account) placed and/or selected for a campaign),marketing funnel states, campaign exit states, and/or other marketingcampaign states that may be utilized in the marketing and trackingsystem. Optionally, a customer prospect transitions through marketingcampaign states and/or stages of the marketing campaign and/or exits amarketing campaign in response to certain user/operator actions (e.g.,placing customer prospect/leads into a marketing campaign), certaindetermined attributes of the customer prospect and/or attributesassociated with a customer prospect, triggering campaign event (e.g.,campaign media element presentation, campaign promotion delivery,marketing campaign stage/state timeout, etc.), and/or the detection ofcertain customer prospect actions (e.g., detecting that the customerprospect has selected an online promotion, downloaded a white paper,placed a phone call, etc.), as further described herein.

Optionally, in the campaign design stage, the user also defines and/orconfigures dashboards and reports to be used during the campaign.Optionally, the user also plans for one or more test offers, optionallyincluding AB testing. Optionally, at this stage (or at another stage),the integration of voice and fax telephony services is included in thecampaign definition. For example, at this stage of the marketing funnel,phone addresses are presented/placed in the online and/or offline media(e.g., television advertisements, radio advertisements, newspapers,etc.). Optionally, phone services are included in initial emails to thetarget customer prospect. Optionally, phone services are used later inthe funnel if, for example, if a web landing page is displayed inresponse to a customer prospect clicking on a link in one or more emailsthat causes a landing page to be presented to a customer prospect via auser browser hosted on a customer prospect's personal/mobile computingdevice. Optionally inbound calls to displayed phone numbers/addresses(e.g., displayed in a media element as described herein) arerouted/bridged to a call center or an inbound sales center through acall processing platform.

Once a campaign is designed, one or more campaigns can be created ordefined. A user, for example a marketing manager, accesses over a datanetwork a system, for example a marketing and tracking system withintegrated telephony, using, for example, a web-browser, a dedicatedapplication, or otherwise. The user is assigned a unique identity withinone or more accounts of the marketing system. The user enters a uniqueidentifier and/or password to gain access to the marketing and trackingsystem.

After authentication by the system, optionally the marketing andtracking system presents a user interface, for example a dashboard orhome page, enabling the user to, among other things, create a marketingcampaign by selecting, for example, an account marketing module userinterface tab or control. The user identifies the campaign, for exampleby entering an identifier for the campaign (although the identifier maybe entered or edited later in the process).

The marketing manager configures the campaign into the system. Thefollowing example embodiments of a marketing and tracking systemillustrate various example types of marketing campaigns, campaigntactics, campaign metrics, and associated system features in variousmarketing channels, in conjunction with discussions regarding telephonyintegration.

Once a marketing campaign is created, the marketingmanager/operator/agent enters customer prospects into the marketingcampaign, for example, via a user interface of the marketing andtracking system. For example, customer prospects may optionally beentered into a campaign for campaign targeting by importing a list ofemail addresses, instant message addresses, and/or telephone addressesassociated with the customer prospects. Optionally, customer prospectsfor a marketing campaign are entered by the operator selecting existingcustomers from, for example, a list, by selecting a database of customerprospects (e.g., operated by a third party or maintained by themarketing and tracking system) and/or by the operator defining certaincharacteristics/attributes of customers or customer prospects (e.g.,gender, age, household income, marital status, education, ethnicity,location, interests, etc.) in a query of a database of customerprospects.

Optionally, the operator selects customer (either existing customers orcustomer prospect) attributes from a user interface display ofattributes (e.g., a menu of attributes) or via entry into a field(s) ofone or more search/data base queries. Optionally, once the operatordefines a criterion or a set of criteria, the marketing and trackingsystem automatically enters one or more (e.g., all) customers meetingthe criteria into the marketing campaign. Optionally, the criteriaand/or circumstance for entering a customer prospect into a marketingcampaign can include but is not limited to one or more of the followingexamples (or any specified combination thereof): a customer prospectvisit to a specific web site, a customer prospect action at a website, acustomer prospect download of or an action in anpreinstalled/downloadable software program or application (including anynetwork-based application such as a smartphone application, tabletapplication, smart watch application, or any personal computing deviceapplication of a customer or customer prospect), a social mediainteraction (e.g., a visit to a social media page, a social media like,a messaging event on a social media page, keywords used on a socialmedia page, a posting, a video and/or photo posting, etc.), the receiptof a communication (e.g., an instant message, a social networkingmessage, an email, a text message, an SMS/MMS message, etc.), adetected/determined location of a user (e.g., using the GPS of acustomer prospects mobile computing device (e.g., a tablet computer, amobile phone, etc.)), a telephony communication event (e.g., an inboundcall from a customer prospect, an outbound call to a customer prospect,a video call, a Facetime session, a Skype or other VoIP call, a receivedfax, instant messaging, etc.), etc. Other example triggering conditions,criteria, and circumstance for entering a user into a campaign include,for example, a lead scoring condition being satisfied or threshold leadscoring exceeded.

Optionally, a unique identity and/or account are created for eachcustomer prospect entered into a campaign. Optionally, anidentifier/handle used by the marketing and tracking system to registera customer prospect is relatively minimalistic, such as a customerprospect's geographic location or the customer's email address.Optionally, the marketing and tracking system assigns a uniqueaccount/customer number/identifier to each customer prospect.Optionally, in response to an explicit customer registration (e.g.,customer prospect entering of a customer login id and/or password) anaccount is created and, optionally, an account number/identifier isassigned to the account.

Optionally, a call to a phone address associated with a marketingcampaign, optionally including a RingPool phone address, triggers one ormore scheduled events or response events. Scheduled events or responseevents may optionally include but are not limited to one or more of thefollowing (or any specified combination thereof): a phone call or returnphone call (e.g., a return call from a sales person or call agent); aconference call with one or more participants; a social media chatsession; an instant message, iMessage, or other messaging/chat session;a Short Message Service/Multi-Media Message Service message or reply; aFaceTime, Skype, or other video-based call sessions or return callsession; facsimile call response; or other communication reply ororigination described herein.

An example embodiment of a marketing campaign in association with amarketing and tracking system with integrated telephony is nowdescribed. In this example embodiment, the campaign is based at least inpart upon demand generation using outbound email.

A user, for example a marketing manager, logs into the system and isauthenticated as described above. The user selects or enters anidentifier for the campaign via the marketing and tracking system (e.g.,one or more servers and associated marketing and tracking applicationsoftware). Optionally, the user configures the marketing campaign by,for example, selecting a navigation control, such as campaign creationtab. Optionally, the user interface includes a number featuresincluding, for example, drag and drop, menu selections, short cut keys,auto fill, etc. to, for example, simplify campaign management andediting.

Optionally, the user/operator enters customer prospects by configuringinto the campaign one or more email campaign lists from a data store oflists. Optionally, the user/operator associates one or more emails(e.g., email templates) with the one or more email campaign lists.Optionally, the user configures (e.g., via a user interface control) aphone number into the one or more email templates with the one or moreemail campaign lists. With respect to number configuration, a number(e.g., a single number) is, for example, configured or assigned by themarketing and tracking software in response to a user request.Alternatively, a user configures or selects a single number from a listof numbers (e.g., vanity numbers or easy to remember phone numbers) tobe used in the campaign. Alternatively, a different number, selectedfrom a pool of numbers (e.g. a RingPool) is used for each template withthe one or more email campaign lists. Optionally, a different number,selected from a pool of numbers (e.g. a RingPool) is used for eachtemplate and for each email campaign list. Optionally, a differentnumber, selected from a pool of numbers (e.g. a RingPool) is used foreach template and for each email campaign list or sub-campaign listwhere a sub-campaign list includes certain attributes (e.g.,sub-campaign lists relating to unique user demographics, user behavior,funnel stage, etc.). Optionally, as further described below, a phonenumber selected from a pool of numbers (e.g., a RingPool) may beassigned dynamically to each individual customer prospect in a marketingcampaign. In this case, each phone number may act as a uniqueidentifier, enabling the marketing and tracking system to track, manage,record, attribute, and/or transcribe phone-based customer interactions(e.g., offline interactions) throughout the campaign based on callsinvolving the assigned phone number. Optionally, the assigned phonenumber and other attributes, for example, the calling party's number(e.g., representing a telephony signaling attribute although a callingparty's number may not consistently and reliably be provided inassociation with each call), together or by itself form the uniqueidentifier to facilitate tracking and campaign management.

Optionally, different phone numbers and/or different phone number poolscan be associated with different date and time triggers within the samemarketing program. For example, a phone number can be modified orselected for insertion in an email template based on a send date andtime.

Optionally, phone number assignments, tracking, and/or reporting can bemodified during the execution of the marketing program withoutdisrupting the campaign itself. Optionally, call management and calltreatment (e.g., dynamic call routing to a backup call center) may alsobe performed without campaign disruption.

Optionally, the marketing and tracking system includes libraries ofhistorical or pre-built marketing programs (e.g., best practicemarketing programs) including, by way of example attached email andlanding page templates. Optionally, these program libraries includeintegrated telephony features and number assignments as describedelsewhere herein. Optionally, selected portions of, or entire marketingprograms, optionally including multiple email campaigns and multiplelanding pages can be cloned and edited, and new and/or unique numbersare automatically assigned to the cloned marketing program.

In an example embodiment, the number of members in a list of emailsassociated with a campaign may be large (e.g., number in the hundreds,thousands, or millions). Thus, it may be impractical (e.g., to acquiresuch an available pool of numbers) and/or cost prohibitive to assigneach member in the campaign a unique phone number when a campaign islaunched. Conventionally, telephone service providers may charge a usera fixed and/or monthly fee, for example, a fixed fee of $1.00 per numberand $0.10 a month per local or toll-free number. In an email campaign ofseveral hundred thousand members, these costs may be prohibitive. Inaddition, each area code is limited to a million phone numbers,providing a technical limitation on the number of phone numbersavailable for a given area code. With the proliferation of mobiledevices, virtual number services, and the existing pool of land-lines,there may be a lack of phone numbers to conventionally run a largemarketing campaign with integrated telephony. Further, it may bedesirable to provide toll-free numbers in certain marketing campaignswhich are even more impacted due to the limited number of area codesdedicated to toll-free calling.

Thus, in order to overcome some or all of the foregoing technicallimitations, in an example embodiment, a phone address is dynamicallyassigned in an email marketing campaign in response to detecting acondition or event, rather than preassigned at the time of launch. Forexample, in response to an existing customer and/or customer prospectopening their marketing campaign email, a programmatic script (e.g.,JavaScript) may be invoked when an email application (e.g., web browserin the case of web email) displays the opened email. Optionally, thescript places a phone address (e.g., phone number) request over a datanetwork, for example, a RingPool API number request as described below.

In the following example, a parameter(s) of the number request includesthe email address of the customer/customer prospect or other identifier(e.g., an identifier associated with each email which uniquelyidentifies the campaign email recipient). The marketing and trackingsystem may associate (e.g., assign) the number request with a member ofthe email campaign. Optionally, a comparison is made with the receivedparameter in the number fetch request to verify the customer prospect isa member of the campaign. For example, an email comparison or uniqueidentifier comparison. Optionally, the programmatic script, upon receiptof the assigned phone number, replaces a portion of text in thedisplayed email. Optionally, a customer/customer prospect account iscreated at the time of the request (or before the request, for example,during the creation of the campaign) and the dynamically assigned phoneaddress is stored in a data store in association with thecustomer/customer prospect account. In addition, any customer/customerprospect tracking information received in association with the phoneaddress request (e.g., RingPool API parameter(s)) is stored inassociation with the identified customer account (or a new customeraccount if the number request lacked an identifier). RingPool APIparameters may optionally include one or more of the following:parameters from cookies earlier set on the customer/customer prospect'sbrowser, dynamic values populated by an associated marketing automationsolution (e.g., date campaign email sent (day, month, and/or year),internal campaign email name, campaign id, email viewing context (send,preview, view as web page, view sent, forward-to-a-friend, landing page,validation, link resolution, short message service, voice, social,platform, site), customer/customer prospect email type (text or HTML),email id, profile attribute full name, customer/customer prospect id,email batch id, certain campaign email account attributes (batch id, jobid), email reply name and/or address, other customized definedalphanumeric strings associated with campaign correspondence), a loyaltyidentifier (e.g., an ID code), mobile device information (e.g., phonedevice, carrier, geo-location, phone address, short code, etc.) etc.

Thereafter, any calls to the assigned phone address received by themarketing and tracking system (e.g., during the marketing campaign orfor other designated time period) are presumed to originate from thecustomer/customer prospect associated with the campaign email and aretracked, bridged, and/or routed as defined by the email campaign.Optionally, calls to the assigned phone address are routed to a salescall center and the email campaign is credited with any associated callactivity and/or sales. Optionally, the marketing and tracking systemstores call attributes including but not limited to: call signalingattributes; customer prospect call actions (e.g., keypress selections);customer prospect detected spoken keywords; call duration; calltermination event; and other call attributes described herein.

In another example, a customer/customer prospect receives an email inassociation with a marketing campaign. For security and/or policyreasons, certain web email services may preclude and/or restrict the useof a programmatic script (e.g., JavaScript) to dynamically replace aportion of text in the email at the time an email is opened or viewed.However, these same web email services may allow certain imagedisplay/request in response to a condition (e.g., an opening ordisplaying of an email). Thus, an image request (e.g., an imageUniversal Resource Locator (URL) request) may be configured in an emailtemplate of the campaign emails wherein the RingPool API parameters orother attributes are attached and/or embedded in the request. The imagerequest is transmitted to the marketing and tracking system.

In response to the received image request, the marketing and trackingsystem acquires an unassigned phone address from a RingPool associatedwith the marketing campaign and generates an image representation of theacquired phone address (e.g., a JPEG image, a .png image, or other imagetype). The marketing and tracking system provides as a response thegenerated image representation of the phone address. For example, atemplate email may include a phone address request in the followingform: https://invoca.net/campaign_id/number.png?param1=<email>. In thisexample, the request is directed over a data network to an Invoca.netserver (e.g., a service provider Invoca of Santa Barbara, Calif. hostinga marketing and tracking system) with a campaign id as an identifier(for example, for authentication and/or to identify the campaign), andan email recipient associated with the number request as a parameter.Optionally, the generated phone address is stored in association withthe identified email recipient (e.g., the email recipient opening thecampaign email) along with any RingPool API parameters and/or callattributes (in the event of a call) as similarly described in theexample above.

To further reduce the number of phone addresses used in a marketingcampaign, if the device type is determined prior to or during theevent/condition (e.g., an open email condition), the image RingPool URLrequest may include device type as a parameter. If the device typesupports call origination, the marketing and tracking system may respondto the request with a “call now” control (e.g., a call now button whichmay be activated by touch when displayed on a touch screen, by mouse,speech or other user input). Optionally, if the “call now” control isselected by the customer prospect in the opened email, a programmaticscript is invoked causing a phone address request to be sent over a datanetwork to the marketing and tracking system. Optionally, upon receiptof the phone address request (optionally, including a campaign memberidentifier as a parameter as described herein above) the marketing andtracking system provides a unique phone address from a RingPool assignedto the marketing campaign. The assigned phone address is used as thecalled number by the computing device of the customer prospect in the“call now” call origination. As similarly described in the exampleabove, any tracking attributes passed in the RingPool API number requestand any calls to the assigned phone address (and associated callattributes) are stored in association with the customer prospectaccount. Optionally, in this example, the assigned phone number displaysas text or an image representation in response to the “call now” controlselection by a customer/customer prospect. This enables thecustomer/customer prospect to place subsequent calls to the assignednumber from other call origination services and devices. Optionally, thephone number is displayed in a pop-up dialer only for the duration ofthe click-to-call experience. In this latter case, optionally, the phonenumber is placed back into the RingPool for use in the same marketingcampaign. Optionally, customer prospect attributes are received duringthe interaction (e.g., the customer prospects email address, callsignaling information, etc.), stored by the marketing and trackingsystem, and used by the system to identify customer prospects in thecurrent or subsequent states of the marketing campaign. Advantageously,the foregoing disclosed techniques further reduce the utilization ofphone addresses as compared to the other example embodiments as a phoneaddress is only assigned if the customer/customer prospect opens acampaign email and activates the call origination control.

Thus, as illustrated in the example embodiment above, if a condition ortechnical environment exists in which a dynamic character display isprecluded but an image display is permitted, the marketing and trackingsystem may optionally generate an image representation of a phoneaddress in response to an image request wherein certain parameters areattached/embedded in the request. Advantageously, the image generationapproach is relatively simple to implement wherein the campaign managermay simply define a well formed image URL in their email template, anddoes not require significant additional hardware or bandwidth overhead.Further, no JavaScript code is required in the solution. As describedabove, the foregoing approach may further overcome certain restrictionsand limitations imposed by certain email services. Optionally, the imagegeneration feature may be utilized in the display of a social networkingpage, in a software program downloadable or preinstalled on a personalcomputing device of a customer/customer prospect, in other media (e.g.,product and service advertisement and/or promotion), display ads orother electronic content. Thus, image generation feature and dynamicphone address may be utilized, for example in association with amarketing program, in one or more applications which may be installed onhundreds, thousands, or millions of personal computing devices.

There may be certain email Internet caching features used by emailmarketing providers which may produce unexpected results. In particular,certain email template images may be cached in various network serversacross the Internet to enable the marketing providers to improve imagedisplay performance and/or reduce their bandwidth utilizationrequirements to display said images templates. This caching may have theunintended consequence of displaying the dynamic number image to two ormore individuals, thereby, defeating or adversely affecting the featureof assigning a unique phone address to each user for tracking purposes.To overcome image caching of the dynamic number image response, theemail marketing provider may optionally configure the image response tocause the image not to be cached, for example, by including acache-control element in the image header. Optionally, the receipt ofmore than a configured threshold number of calls with unique caller IDs(e.g., more than 3 unique caller IDs) may indicate network caching.Optionally, if network caching is detected, an alarm is set and/or theuser/operator or system is notified of the exception condition. Theexception condition may then be processed.

Thus, certain embodiments may be utilized with a variety of campaignsthat integrate telephone and online aspects. Optionally, in certainembodiments a customer/customer prospect opens an email generated in acampaign causing the display in an image of the email a unique phoneaddress in which the phone address may be used for sales and marketingand tracking and attribution.

FIG. 1 illustrates an example marketing and tracking systemarchitecture. The illustrated system architecture can be used tofacilitate telephonic, email, SMS, and other forms of communication.Certain embodiments process and track communications to facilitateonline ordering of items, such as products or services. Thus, theillustrated system architecture can optionally be used to reduce theamount of revenue that would be lost by publishers/advertisers should aconsumer decide to call an advertiser to make the purchase as opposed toordering the item online via a Website or within an application.Additionally, the illustrated system architecture can optionally be usedto increase the amount of revenue generated from offline or onlineadvertising by including promotional contact information in the offlineor online media. Still further, the illustrated system architectureenables the tracking of calls associated with email campaigns.

As illustrated in FIG. 1, a consumer terminal 400 (e.g., a generalpurpose computer, a tablet computer, an interactive television, a phonewith data network capability, a networked game console, etc.) is coupledto an affiliate via an affiliate system 200 (which optionally hosts awebsite on a web server) over a network (e.g., the Internet). Theaffiliate system 200 is coupled over a network (e.g., the Internet) withan affiliate network via affiliate network system 100. The affiliatenetwork system 100 includes a network interface, a server 9, and anaffiliate network software platform 10 which executes on the server 9.The affiliate network software platform 10 includes a frontend 11, whichcommunicates with the affiliate system 200 and with an advertiser system300 (which includes a website 302 hosted on a web server, a call queueprogram 301, and a user terminal).

The affiliate network system 100 includes a backend 12. The backend 12includes phone number mapping software 13, a text to speech system 14,and a sound/speech detection and recognition system 15. The server 9 iscoupled via a network to a control center system 20, which includesapplication 21. In an example process, a producer/advertiser may createa campaign and make the campaign available to an affiliate. Theaffiliate may then assign a phone number to the campaign and integratethe phone number into the affiliate's web site (e.g., post the number orprovide a link associated with the number on a web page). Auser/consumer may then place a call to the phone number and is connectedto a call center associated with the advertiser. The call may be trackedand the affiliate and may be credited for the call. Optionally, thesystem enables the dynamic provisioning of phone address display inemail campaigns.

FIG. 2 illustrates another example system architecture 1005, optionally,the elements of system architecture 1005 can be included in the exampleaffiliate network system 100 of FIG. 1. The illustrated systemarchitecture 1005 can be used to facilitate communications betweenindividuals and enterprises in the context of product and servicepromotions and customer service management. As illustrated, the systemis connected or connectable to a plurality ofconsumers/customers/customer prospects 400 and the user's mobiledevice/phones 1200. The mobile phones/devices 1200 are connected to aphone (wireless) network 3000 and data network 4000. Optionally,wireline phones (not shown in FIG. 2) are connected to a phone(wireline) network 3000. Optionally, the Customer/User 400 can accessone or more data networks 4000 (e.g., web sites and associated webpages, the Internet or a corporate LAN or WAN) using their mobiletelephone computing device 1200 (e.g., smart phone, tablet, phablet,etc.) and/or their personal computer device 1320. The personal computerdevice 1320 can be a personal computing devices having a monitor,keyboard, memory, and a data communication interface. In addition, thepersonal computer device 1320 can be an interactive television, anetworked-enabled personal digital assistant (PDA) or the like.Optionally, the system includes the Affiliate Network 100 and ControlCenter 20, see, for example, FIG. 1.

As further illustrated, the marketing and tracking system 1005 interactswith a plurality of advertiser and affiliate computer/data terminals1300 and 1310, respectively. The data/computer terminals 1300 and 1310can be a personal computer having a monitor, keyboard, memory, and adata communication interface. In addition, the computer terminal 1300and 1310 can be an interactive television, a networked-enabled personaldigital assistant (PDA), a smart/wireless phone 1500, tablet computer,phablet, or the like. The data/computer terminals 1300 and 1310 areconnected to a data network 4000 (e.g., the Internet or a corporate LANor WAN). The data network 4000 includes wireline data networks (like thepublic Internet accessed using dialup or DSL/cable modems) and wirelessdata networks (e.g., wireless mobile and WiFi data networks).

As further illustrated, the marketing and tracking system 1005integrates with a plurality of customer service and/or sales agents 200via the phone network 3000 and/or data network 4000. Optionally, theagents 3200 have a wireline/wireless phone and/or a phone headset 220used to communicate with customer's/user's 400.

The marketing and tracking system's 1005 servers 600, 700, and 800 areinterconnected either through Data Network 4000 or via a private LocalArea Network (LAN) or private Wide Area Network (WAN) 450—as shown bythe solid line connections in FIG. 2.

The marketing and tracking system 1005 in this example containscentralized databases 900 and/or general-purpose storage area,optionally including, but not limited to, some or all of the following:an advertiser, affiliate, affiliate network account database, configuredcampaigns and campaign attributes, phone numbers/addresses, call routingrules, call records, call recordings, advertising creatives information,etc. The detailed call transaction information associated with a callmay include some or all of the following information: call signaling,call duration, call content (e.g., recording of call and conversion ofrecorded data), call type (e.g., inbound, outbound, fax, voice), callrouting, call bridging, call termination states (far-end, near-enddisconnect), voice prompting (e.g., IVR trees), caller interactions(including speech and dtmf tone), and/or other information. The detailedcall transaction may be stored in in databases 900 and/orgeneral-purpose storage areas. Optionally, the call transactioninformation is provided or accessed for data mining. Optionally, thecall transaction information can be used and/or integrated/associatedwith internal and/or external databases 950 (using, for example, datanetwork 4000) in order to, for example, collect additional informationabout a caller. Optionally, the stored data can be used in marketingcampaigns to improve customer prospect targeting and the efficacy of thecampaign (including stored explicit data and implicit data derived fromother data stores). Optionally, the stored data can be used inretargeting marketing campaigns.

The marketing and tracking system 1005 in this example contains a phoneserver subsystem 600 with call and fax processing and call bridgingcapabilities. Optionally, the servers bridge and/or route calls betweenusers, advertisers (e.g., advertiser's call center), and/or thirdparties (e.g., an outsourced call center). User calls optionally arereceived by (inbound) or originated from (outbound) the phone serversubsystem 600. Additionally, advertiser/third party calls are receivedby (inbound) or originated from (outbound) the phone server subsystem600. For example, a call center agent places a call to the phone serversubsystem 600 and the phone server subsystem originates an outbound callto a user who expressed an interest in a product or service, or inresponse to a gesture on a web-page (e.g., click-to-call). These servers600 optionally provide interactive voice response, voice messaging,voice recognition, text-to-speech services, fax server features, andvoice and voice message transcription to natural-language text.Optionally, the phone server's services (e.g., text-to-speech) utilizedin a call are configurable (e.g., a specific interactive voice responsetree or sub-menu) and may be determined based on attributes of thecaller or called party or other call quality criteria (e.g.,time-of-day, terminal device of caller or called party, etc.).

The marketing and tracking system 1005 in this example includes one ormore general purpose servers 700 for performing a collection of tasksincluding for example, general computing tasks, image processing, dataanalysis, data store access, etc. Optionally the one or more servers 700are connected to data networks 4000 including the Internet.

The marketing and tracking system 1005 in this example contains a webserver and general purpose server subsystem 800 with web serving andgeneral computing capabilities.

The marketing and tracking system 1005 in this example optionallyinterfaces with (e.g., over a data network 4000) with one or moreexternal web servers, including an Advertiser Web Server. Optionally,the web server(s) 800 host one or more web pages of publishers and/oradvertisers. Optionally, the system 1005 redirects users to anAdvertiser's Web Server 850. Optionally, the marketing and trackingsystem 1005 redirects consumers/users to an Advertiser's Web Serverwhere the redirect includes one or more phone addresses from a phonenumber pool wherein the phone address is optionally used as a trackingelement. Optionally, the marketing and tracking system 1005 generatesand/or displays an image of a one or more phone addresses which may bedisplayed to a customer/customer prospect (e.g., when a customerprospect opens said email).

In this example, the marketing and tracking system 1005 servers 600 and800 are optionally centralized at a given location, or distributed to anumber of locations. The marketing and tracking system 1005 can beimplemented as a Software as a Service (SaaS) system (e.g., a systemused by a number of service providers) or the system can be integratedinto a service provider's internal systems (e.g., an affiliate network).Optionally, the marketing and tracking system 1005 is connected to adata communication network 4000 and a wireline/wireless network 3000.The marketing and tracking system 1005 interconnects with thewireline/wireless network 3000 using conventional telecommunicationinterfaces (e.g., SS7 trunk connections, T1 trunk connections, etc.) andvia data communication networks 4000 using a secure router subsystem.Optionally, an SMS server subsystem which serves as a mail relay totransmit and receive SMS and MMS messages via a Short Message ServiceCenter (e.g., an SMSC operated by a network carrier). Optionally, thereceipt of and origination of wireline, wireless, and/or data calls isvia data interfaces using conventional Voice Over Internet Protocols(VoIP) connections and associated Internet telephony protocols such asSession Initiated Protocol. Optionally, inbound calls (e.g., an inboundcall from a customer prospect) to the system are bridged with anoutbound call (e.g., an outbound call to a call center) via an internalswitching mechanism. Call bridging enables a calling party to beconnected to a called party in order that the calling party and calledparty may communicate over the bridged connection. Optionally, thesystem enables a third party to be connected to a call. Optionally, thesystem is capable of monitoring the voice channel of all connections.Optionally, the system may be configured to enable half-duplexconnections and associated monitoring. For example, enabling asupervisor to be connected and monitor a call between a customerprospect and sales agent in which the talk path from the supervisor ismuted.

The marketing and tracking system may access the location of the user'smobile device 1200 by accessing a third party system or third partydatabase which is capable of tracking the user's mobile device'slocation. Geographic location information and/or approximate geographiclocation of a caller (e.g., a customer and/or customer prospect) isoptionally determined. For example, the geographic location informationand/or approximate geographic location of a caller is optionallydetermined from call signaling information associated with an inboundcall. In addition, a call signaling parameter labeled the JurisdictionInformation Parameter (JIP) in an SS7 IAM message or SIP-T parameter canoptionally be used to determine geographic location informationassociated with the caller. In an example embodiment, the JIP parameteris populated with a NPA-NXX number (e.g., a 6 digit NPA-NXX number) whenan inbound call transits from the wireless network to the wirelinenetwork. This NPA-NXX indicates a geographic area from which thewireless call originated, where the NPA portion indicates the area codefrom which the call originated and the NXX portion indicates thetelephone office exchange from which the call originated. Thisinformation optionally can be used to transfer the call to, for examplea merchant or call center location, nearest the user. Optionally, anadministrator configures an IVR tree to interact with the user to, forexample, ask permission to obtain the user's location informationdirectly or from a separate data source.

Optionally, a customer/customer prospect is tracked across one or morecomputing devices using a persistent unique identifier. Optionally, oneor more servers of the system architecture can access a persistentunique identifier platform from a provider over a data network 4000 inorder to obtain user tracking information.

In another system architecture, a system/platform includes one or morenetworked computing servers, data stores (e.g., databases), networkinginfrastructure, telephony capabilities including call routing,switching, and bridging, and a collection of general purpose andspecific (e.g. voice recognition) application/system software asdescribed above. In addition to the some or all of the componentsdescribed in the above two architectures 100 and 1005 above, asystem/platform optionally includes a marketing and tracking softwareapplication and centralized marketing data store, software analytics,user interfaces, dashboards, and reporting. Optionally, the telephonycapabilities/subsystem is configured remote and/or separate from themarketing and tracking software application/platform and its associatednetwork-based servers and data stores. Optionally, one or more networkinterfaces enable data transfers between the telephony subsystems andmarketing and tracking platform. Optionally, the telephonycapabilities/subsystem is offered by a provider separate from themarketing and tracking platform provider and the systems are integratedvia one or more Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) over anetwork. Optionally, telephony subsystem and marketing and trackingplatform are provided via a cloud-based service and/orSoftware-as-a-Service (SaaS) model. Optionally, in a cloud or SaaSoperational implementation, one or more of the subsystems (e.g.,telephony, marketing and tracking platform, web servers, etc.) areoperated by one or more service providers.

Optionally, the marketing and tracking system/platform includes acentralized marketing application which is used to create and manage themarketing programs and associated program stages, tracks each customerprospect and stores (e.g., in a centralized data store) the trackinginformation and any inferred and declared data associated with eachcustomer prospect. Optionally, the marketing program is integrated withand receives detailed tracking information from numerous internal andexternal system providing the online and offline (e.g., telephony andcall processing subsystems) customer prospect interactions including,for example, but not limited to some or all of the following: email:list storage and generation, sending, monitoring; web-site: corporate,landing pages, and microsites; blogs: postings, monitoring, andmanagement; webinars/webcasts/videos/online courses: invitations,registrations, attendance, viewing, delivery, and posting; free trials:invitations, registrations, activity, termination; downloads:invitations, registrations, delivery status; free software: invitations,registrations, activity, termination; documents: postings, monitoring,and management; integrated or public application directory: invitations,registrations accessing, searching, perusal; widget: gadget;invitations, registrations, delivery status, type, activity/usage,updates; social media: monitoring (including a monitoring service),postings, sharing, liking, modified status; RSS/XML feed: postings,monitoring, and management; survey: invitations, registrations,completion, acknowledgement; search activity: term list management,monitoring; certifications: invitations, registrations, outcomedetermination, award/denial management; podcasts: invitations,registrations, activity, terminations, streaming, downloads. Optionally,the implicit and explicit data (including for example recorded phonecalls and associated transcriptions) and transaction data describedabove are stored in one or more databases and/or general purpose datastores. Optionally, this data is available for data mining. Optionally,one or more customer prospects may be placed into a different and/orsubsequent marketing campaign/program based upon an indication from thedata mining that the customer prospect is likely to be interested inand/or need a product and/or service. Optionally, the customer prospectis retargeted in a marketing program based at least in part upon ananalysis of the stored data associated with the marketing program.Optionally, other data may be captured with respect to marketingprograms/campaigns includes, for example, program start/end dates,converted prospects, program costs in terms of both expenses and staff.Optionally, historical marketing campaigns and/or best practicecampaigns and the associated data/metrics are stored and available forreview, comparison, trend analysis, and/or cloning for new campaigns.

Optionally, the system/platform's one or more dashboards/reports providestaff (e.g., marketing and/or sales personnel) real-time and/or nearreal-time information on customers/prospects interacting with marketingmedia associated with the company and/or marketing campaigns.Optionally, the platform enables the distribution of these real-timecustomer engagements to company personnel (e.g., sales agents).Optionally, the system/platform enables the recipients (e.g., salesagents) to view information associated with the customer's/prospect'scurrent engagement and/or other information associated with thecustomer/prospect including for example, attributes/characteristics,marketing program state, call events data (including, for example: calltype (e.g., voice, fax, cell, video, VoIP (e.g., Google Voice), Facetime, Skype, etc.); inbound or outbound; call duration; call signalinginformation (calling party, called party, private, charge number,direct, forwarded, busy, etc.); conferenced call; bridged call; calltermination state (e.g., far-end termination, near-end, bridge); type ofcalled number (e.g., toll-free, local, long distance); called or callingdevice type), etc.

Optionally, the system/platform generates alerts or notifications tosales/marketing/support/executive staff personnel in response to acondition, including in response to one or more conditions describedherein. Optionally, the alerts are sent via messaging services such asemail. Optionally, the alerts are sent as a text message via SMS/MMS, aninstant message, a widget/gadget display, a customized client softwareapplication, and/or an outbound call. Optionally, the condition istriggered, for example, by an event such as, by way of example, one ormore of the following: a time period expiration, a marketing programstate transition, an attribute/characteristic of a prospect/customerdetermined by the system, an attribute/characteristic prospect/customerstate change, a type of call or message (e.g., inbound voicecall/message, outbound voice call/message, inbound fax call/message,outbound fax call/message,), content of a voice call or message (e.g.,as determined by an analysis of a transcribed call or message), contentof a fax call (e.g., as determined by an analysis of the text in the faxand/or certain completed fields, optionally including a signaturefield), etc.

Optionally, the system/platform includes one or moresales/marketing/executive-level friendly user interfaces (e.g., reportsand/or dashboards) which enable one or more views and/or analysis intothe stored data including, for example, trends, program performance,alerts, efficiency, program design, etc. Optionally, the system/platformincludes one or more customizable views and/or analysis into the storeddata which can be used by business analyst or other technical resourcesto build custom reports to meet specific needs of the organizationand/or to derive particular insights from the data. Optionally, the datastored in the system/platform can be exported to other analyticprograms/processing systems.

Optionally, the system/platform provides one or more real-time and/ornear real-time information via dashboards/reports to staff (e.g.,marketing and/or sales personnel) on customers/prospects interactingwith marketing media or media elements associated with the companyand/or marketing campaigns. Optionally, the platform enables thedistribution of these real-time customer engagements to companypersonnel (e.g., sales agents). Optionally, the system/platform enablesthe recipients (e.g., sales agents) to view information associated withthe customer's/prospect's current engagement and/or other informationassociated with the customer/prospect including for example,attributes/characteristics, marketing program state, etc. Optionally,the current information is made available (e.g., via a data networkinterface) to other applications/systems including, for example, a CRM(customer relationship management) application

Optionally, the system/platform supports a collection of user interfacesfor creating marketing programs/campaigns and for routing leads out ofthe funnel to the appropriate organization (e.g., customer care, sales,VIP sales, etc.) and/or individual. Optionally, the user interface ispresented by a customized software client. Optionally, the userinterface is presented in one or more existing sales force automationclient interfaces. Optionally, the user interface is presented viastandard clients including, for example, a web browser (e.g., Chrome,Firefox, Safari, Internet Explorer), and/or a mail client application(e.g., Microsoft Outlook).

RingPool API

Optionally, a user (e.g., an Advertiser, a Publisher, a ServiceProvider, a third-party Service Provider (e.g., a Service Provider otherthan a Service Provider hosting the marketing and tracking system, etc.)hosting a marketing campaign may access RingPool phone addresses via anApplication Program Interface (API) over a data network. In an exampleembodiment of a RingPool API, there are certain references to a CustomerRingPool configuration. Custom RingPools enable a campaign manager/userand/or publishers to track online sources that are driving traffic totheir campaigns. With Custom RingPools multiple text string (forexample, the use of three text strings is described with respect to anexample embodiment below) are passed to the marketing and trackingsystem in a web transaction that can be used to identify the trafficsource driving a specific call.

In an example embodiment, a RingPool API may comprise some or all of thefollowing parameters.

-   -   RingPool Key: An authentication key required for each RingPool.    -   Param1: The first parameter of a Custom RingPool. Used only in        Custom RingPool configurations.    -   ParamN: The nth parameter of a Custom RingPool. Used only in        Custom RingPool configurations.    -   SearchEngine: The search engine used to process a search query.        Used in either Search RingPool type.    -   SearchKeywords: The search query the user searched for. Used in        either Search RingPool type.    -   SearchKeyword_id: The keyword ID that is associated with the        query string. Used only in the Keyword ID Search RingPool type.    -   landing_page: The landing page URL to be displayed in reporting.        This is an optional parameter.    -   referrer: Can be used instead of the two parameters        “Search_engine” and “SearchKeywords”. The Marketing and tracking        system determines the two parameter values by parsing the        referrer URL. This is an optional parameter.    -   mobile_click_to_call: If enabled, returns mobile enabled links        that populate smartphone's dialers when clicked while not        affecting conventional personal computers. This is an optional        parameter.    -   Affiliate_ID An affiliate or publisher account ID (or other        identifier that is unique to the advertiser and associated with        affiliate or publisher) and is used to allocate a RingPool        number on behalf of the publisher or affiliate.

Optionally the RingPool API returns a RingPool phone address and aformatted click-through URL. The response can be in any number offormats including for example, xml (EXtensible Markup Language), json(JavaScript Object Notation), or csv (Comma Separated Values).

In the example embodiments described herein a server-to-server and/orbrowser-to-server RingPool API (Application Program Interface) isdefined to provide a dynamic number replacement on a web page. As such,the API round-trip introduces a latency in the display of the web page.From a customer and/or customer prospect web experience, it is highlydesirable to display the web page fast, preferably in less than 200milliseconds.

Conventionally, APIs using a REpresentational State Transfer (REST)architecture run over Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), which can,for example, take 100-200 milliseconds to return a result even if insidethe same country as a requesting device, and often longer if crossingcountry boundaries. One reason for this is the TCP “slow start”protocol. The User Datagram Protocol (UDP) can have much lower latencythan TCP. But browsers conventionally do not support UDP directly.

Although browsers do not conventionally support UDP directly, browsersmay support name lookup by the Domain Name Server (DNS) protocol, whichruns over UDP. In order to reduce latencies, a Dynamic Number server APIis described that may be tunneled over DNS or other similar name serverprotocol.

An example embodiment of a Dynamic Number server API using DNS is nowdescribed. Conventionally, a dynamic number retrieval may be used in asearch marketing campaign (e.g., a paid search marketing campaign). Forexample, a marketing manager may purchase one or more search keywordsfrom a search provider. If a customer prospect places a search requestfor a purchased search keyword, the search engine may display one ormore advertisements in association with the search response. If thecustomer prospect selects a displayed paid advertisement correspondingto the marketing campaign, the customer prospect may be directed to aweb landing page of the advertiser (e.g., as defined by the marketingmanager). Optionally, a dynamic contact address (e.g., a phone numberassociated with a marketing campaign) is requested (e.g., via a RingPoolAPI) and displayed in the web landing page of the advertiser. Forexample, a dynamic number retrieval for a marketing campaign #1458 thatis tracking a search keyword/term/query parameter identified as keyword#58 might have used a REST API at an endpoint such as the followingexample:

“http://api.example.com/dynamic”

with a request body such as:

{“campaign”:1458,“search_keyword”:58}.

An example marketing and tracking system response might look like:

{“phone_number”:“8884521084”}

wherein the phone number 1-888-452-1084 is a phone address selected froma RingPool assigned to the marketing campaign.

Optionally, the above request may be tunneled over DNS or other nameservice by encoding the request as a name, such as in the followingexample:

58.1458.dynamic.example.com

wherein the search keyword identifier (58) and marketing campaignidentifier (1458) are attached and/or embedded as parameters of the DNSor other name service lookup. The response may be returned as in thefollowing example response:

[SVR] tel:8884521084

wherein the Service Record (SVR) defining the DNS lookup responseincludes an attached and/or embedded phone address. An SRV record isconventionally a specification of data in the DNS defining the location(e.g., the hostname and port number), of servers for specified services.

In the example embodiment described above, the marketing campaignidentifier and search keyword are passed as parameters of the request.Optionally, other parameters may be passed to the marketing and trackingsystem and may optionally include one or more of the following:parameters from cookies earlier set on the customer/customer prospect'sbrowser, dynamic values populated by an associated marketing automationsolution (e.g., date campaign email sent (day, month, and/or year),internal campaign email name, campaign id, email viewing context (send,preview, view as web page, view sent, forward-to-a-friend, landing page,validation, link resolution, short message service, voice, social,platform, site), customer/customer prospect email type (text or HTML),email id, profile attribute full name, customer/customer prospect id,email batch id, certain campaign email account attributes (batch id, jobid), email reply name and/or address, other customized definedalphanumeric strings associated with campaign correspondence), a loyaltyidentifier (e.g., an ID code), mobile device information (e.g. phonedevice type, carrier, geo-location, phone address, short code, etc.)etc. Optionally, the name server protocol may have a limited length thatis shorter than all the values that are to be tracked. Typically, one ofthe values is short enough and known to be unique. In that case, theinitial tracking number can be retrieved using just that short, uniquevalue. The remaining parameters may then be sent in subsequent requestswithout affecting the initial latency visible to the user (for example,after the web page has been rendered with the unique tracking number.)

Optionally, the name server protocol may have a limited character setalphabet. For example, the limited character set may be a subset ofASCII supported by the DNS. In the case that unsupported characters(e.g., Á, Ò, Ü, Ý) appear in the tracked values, the unsupportedcharacters can first be mapped to a supported set of characters using anencoding syntax by which a string of Unicode characters is transformeduniquely and reversibly into a smaller, limited character set. Forexample, the ASCII characters in the string may be separated, out asfollows. The ASCII characters in the string, that are included thelimited character set, are copied and other characters in the string areskipped over and not copies. A character, such as an ASCII hyphen, maybe added to the end of the copied characters to indicate that theresulting string excludes one or more characters from the originalstring. The excluded characters may be encoded as code numbers. The codenumbers may then be re-encoded as ASCII sequences using ASCII charactersincluded in the limited character set.

The server can reverse the process using said mapping protocol.

Thus, an efficient and well-known name server protocol may be used totunnel dynamic number requests over a data network, such as theInternet, to a marketing and tracking system causing a timely display ofa phone address in a web-page, browser, or other computing deviceapplication of a customer and/or customer prospect. Optionally, one ormore tracking parameters corresponding to the customer and/or customerprospect may be included in the request. An Advantageous optionalbenefit of the name server tunneling approach is lower latency. Inaddition or instead, the name server tunneling approach may be used fora caching benefit. The name server protocol may cache results on one ormore intermediate servers based on the configured Time To Live (TTL)sent with the original request. In particular, when a caching nameserver queries an authoritative name server for a resource record, itwill cache that resource record for a time period specified by theconfigured TTL. If a stub resolver queries the caching name server forthe same record before the TTL has expired, the caching server may replywith the cached resource record rather than having to retrieve theresource record from the authoritative name server again.

A feature of marketing automation and the marketing and tracking systemis lead or prospect scoring. Lead scoring is a method of assigning avalue (e.g., a numerical value) to leads in order to determine theirwillingness to purchase a company's product or service. Lead scoring isoften used in conjunction with customer prospect nurturing. Leads withhigh scores can be accelerated through the nurturing funnel orfast-tracked to sales and, correspondingly, leads with low scores can belead nurtured. In addition, lead scoring improves the efficiency of thesales and marketing process by enabling the organization to focus moreattention on the higher quality leads.

The method of assigning or calculating a value (which may be calculatedby the marketing and tracking system) is based at least in part upon adetermined collection of attributes associated with the customerprospect. The attributes may include some or all of the following:demographic attributes (e.g., gender, age, ethnicity, language,disabilities, mobility, homeownership, employment status, credit status,geographic location, computing devices, mobile devices, telephony,etc.), psychographic attributes (e.g., personality traits, interests,lifestyles, values, attitudes, etc.), behavioral attributes (e.g.,online usage (e.g., read emails, clicks, web visits, keywords, webinarparticipation, online social media participation, etc.), loyalty, etc.),and/or organization/firm demographics (e.g., company size, industry, jobfunction, job title, etc.).

Lead/prospect scoring may be performed by the marketing and trackingsystem or otherwise, optionally combining explicit scoring and implicitscoring. Explicit scoring may be based at least in part on informationthe prospect declares (e.g., via an online or faxed registration form)and implicit scoring may be based at least in part upon informationobserved or inferred about the prospect (e.g., a link selection on a webpage).

With respect to explicit scoring, for example, a value, such as anumerical value, is assigned to information declared by the prospect.Optionally, one or more internal or external data stores (e.g., a dataservice operated by a separate company) are queried to determineadditional facts about the prospect based upon their declared data.Optionally, the marketing automation supports auto-fill forms linked toa user's social media site. Optionally, certain declared data isweighted by importance, for example, a prospects job title can beweighted heavier than his/her age.

With respect to implicit scoring, for example, a value, such as anumerical value, is assigned to information inferred about the prospect.Optionally, one or more external databases are queried to determineadditional facts about the prospect based upon the inferred data.Optionally, certain inferred data is weighted by importance, forexample, a website selection on a product associated link can beweighted heavier than a website selection on a corporate informationassociated link.

Optionally, the lead's score is determined at least in part by summingthe weighted numerical values assigned to the lead across the explicitand implicit attributes. Optionally, the lead's score is furthermodified by adding or subtracting values, such as numerical points. Forexample, points might be subtracted from a lead score if some or all ofthe data is determined to be of low quality/relevance based upon, forexample, additional information acquired using a prospect's phonenumber. If a company is selling year round active wear and it isdetermined the prospect's phone number is based in California,additional points might be added to the lead's score, as it is morelikely that a California resident will be more interested in such typeof clothing due to its moderate weather. In the same example, if theprospect's phone number is based in Michigan, additional points might bededucted from the lead's score, as it is less likely that a Michiganresident will be interested in such type of clothing due to its moreextreme weather.

Optionally, lead scoring from online interactions is combined withoffline interactions, and in particular, lead scoring associated withtelephony/call processing. The combined lead scoring provides a deeperand more valuable lead scoring methodology than conventional marketingautomation lead scoring. Optionally, attributes associated with, forexample, the length of the call and/or the disposition of the call areincluded in the lead's score and/or the weighting of the lead's score asfurther described below. Optionally, the placement of calls todesignated numbers may route calls directly to an operator (e.g. salesand/or customer support) or calls to such numbers may be configured toterminate in an IVR interface to provide data to and/or collect datafrom a user. Optionally, in both lead scoring and lead nurturing,information about a customer prospect and/or a customer is progressivelyassembled through a campaign and/or previous campaigns and stored (e.g.,in a data store) in association with the customer prospect and/orcustomer (e.g., in a lead record). This information is used repeatedlyto improve targeting of an existing campaign and/or for futurecampaigns.

FIGS. 3 and 4 illustrate a first example operational flow of the system1005 described above. Process states are listed on the left and elementsof the operating environment of FIG. 2 are listed across the top. Thestates below depicts an example embodiment of the system 1005 in which amarketing campaign of a commercial airline, ACME Air, engages acollection of prospective customers regarding an air fare sale includingvacation packages. In this example embodiment, the campaign providesdynamic number images in order to manage to costs of the campaign(including, for example, the cost of allocated phone addresses).

In the example embodiment below, the states below are intended tohighlight/overview the operation of the system 1005 and not detail everyoperation of the system in an example marketing campaign. An exampleembodiment of a marketing campaign in association with a marketing andtracking system with integrated telephony is now described. In thisexample embodiment, the campaign is based at least in part upon salesdemand generation using outbound email. In the example embodiment, thecustomer prospect's email provider does not support the execution ofJavaScript programmatic access and display of a text string.

State 1 of FIG. 3. A user, for example a marketing manager 300, accessesover a data network 4000 a system, for example a marketing and trackingsystem with integrated telephony 1005, using, for example, aweb-browser, a dedicated application, or otherwise hosted on a terminal1300 (e.g., a desktop computer, laptop computer, tablet computer, smartphone, or other computing terminal). The user 300 enters theirpreviously assigned unique identifier and password to gain access to themarketing and tracking system 1005.

State 2 of FIG. 3. The marketing and tracking system 1005, via a generalpurpose network-based server 700, receives and authenticates themarketing manager's entered credentials, by for example, accessing astored customer user name and password stored in database 900.

State 3 of FIG. 3. After authentication by the system 1005 and subsystemserver 700, optionally the marketing and tracking system 1005, viaserver 700, presents a user interface, for example a dashboard or homepage, on the user terminal enabling the user to, among other things,create a marketing campaign by selecting, for example, an accountmarketing module user interface tab or control. The user optionallyidentifies the campaign, for example by entering a name identifier forthe campaign (e.g., ACME Air Fare Sale). Optionally, a RingPool isassigned at this state to the marketing campaign. Optionally, theRingPool has a certain quantity of phone addresses in the RingPool. Thecreated campaign is stored in a data store 900 of the marketing andtracking system 1005 via server 700. The system 1005, via server 700,may receive and store the campaign identification, and may store theassociation of the campaign with the RingPool.

State 4 of FIG. 3. Optionally, the user/operator 300 enters customerprospects by configuring into the campaign an email campaign lists froma data store 900 of lists or by accessing an email marketer externaldata store 950 via data network 4000. Optionally, the user/operator 300associates an email (e.g., an air fare sale email template) with anemail campaign lists. In this example embodiment, the campaign consistsof a single email (other campaigns may consist of a series of emails).Because of the large number of email recipients of the campaign, theuser chooses to use the dynamic number image feature. Thus, a phoneaddress is not assigned to the email template at the launch of thecampaign. Rather, the user specifies an image URL in a designated areaof the template in which a phone address is meant to be displayed to theemail recipient. In this example, the image URL takes the form“https://invoca.net/campaign_id/number.png?param1=<email>”. The dynamicnumber image feature edits to the marketing campaign and email recipientlist are received and stored in a data store 900 of the marketing andtracking system 1005 via server 700.

State 5 of FIG. 3. The marketing campaign (the ACME Air Fare Salemarketing campaign in this example) is launched in response to the user300 selecting a campaign launch control on the Data Terminal 1300.

State 6 of FIG. 3. In this example, the marketing and tracking systemsends the emails to the email addresses included in the email recipientlist in response to the campaign launch control selection. Optionally,the email distribution itself is managed by a separate provider, forexample, an email marketing provider.

State 7 of FIG. 3. A web email provider 500 receives the sent email. Inresponse to the received email, the web email provider 500 notifies(e.g., via a display notification on a computing device 1320 of thecustomer prospect 400 or via a display on a mobile device 1200 of thecustomer prospect 400) the customer prospect 400 of the received email.

State 8 of FIG. 3. The customer prospect 400 opens the email, forexample, by selecting the received ACME Air Fare Sale email from a listof emails displayed in a browser window hosted on the user's computingdevice 1320.

State 9 of FIG. 3. The opening of the email is a condition whichinitiates, at least in part, a one or more images to appear in theopened email displayed in the customer prospect's browser. One or moreimage fetch requests are issued, including for example, a fetch imagerequest to a web server 800 (or image server). At least one of the imagefetch requests is the dynamic number image URL defined in State 4.

State 10 of FIG. 3. The marketing and tracking system receives thedynamic number image fetch request from the browser hosted on thecustomer computing device 1320. In response to the received fetch imagerequest, the marketing and tracking system 1005 (e.g., web server 800)parses the image fetch request. The marketing and tracking system 1005authenticates the image fetch request is a valid request from an activemarketing campaign, for example, by comparing one or more parameters ofthe fetch request against campaign parameters stored in the data store900. The marketing and tracking system 1005, via server 800, alsocompares the email address received as a parameter in the image requestwith those email addresses of the marketing campaign. In this example,the email address matches a at least one originated marketing campaignemail.

State 11 of FIG. 3. Subsequent to the marketing campaign validation, themarketing and tracking system 1005, via server 800, acquires a phoneaddress from the RingPool associated with the campaign (see also State3). The phone address assigned is the telephone number 1-800-123-4567 inthis example.

State 12 of FIG. 3. The marketing and tracking system 1005 (e.g., usingserver 800 or 700) creates a customer prospect account in the data store900 and stores in data store 900 the email address received in the imagerequest parameter1 and the assigned telephone number 1-800-123-4567.

State 13 of FIG. 3. The marketing and tracking system 1005, via server700, generates an image 510 wherein the image 510 contains a visualrepresentation of the phone address 1-800-123-4567 as illustrated inFIG. 5.

State 14 of FIG. 3. In response to the fetch request, the marketing andtracking system 1005, transmits the phone address image 510 from server800 over a data network 4000 to the browser hosted on the computingdevice 1320 displaying the campaign email. Optionally, a cache-controlelement is included in the response to prevent a network cachingserver(s) from caching the phone address image.

State 15 of FIG. 4. The phone address image is displayed in the campaignemail to the customer prospect 400 via the customer computing devicebrowser.

State 16 of FIG. 4. The customer prospect 400, upon reading the emailchooses to act on the campaign email (e.g., chooses to purchase avacation package described in the campaign email). The customer prospect400 originates a phone call to the phone address 1-800-123-4567displayed in the image. In this example, the call from the customerprospect 400 originates from a personal computing device 1200 (e.g., thecustomer prospect's smartphone) other than a computing device 1320 fromwhich the email is displayed (in other examples, the call may be placedby a POTs wireline phone or via the computing device 1320 (e.g., viaVoIP)). In this example, the call is a Wireless Public SwitchedTelephone Network 3000 call received, for example, at a phone server 600over a trunk IP connection (e.g., a trunk connecting the phone server600 to wireline and wireless phone networks). Optionally, a collectionof conventional and/or non-conventional call signaling informationassociated with the call is received including, for example, call type(landline, cellular, data), forwarding, calling party identification,called party identification, charge number, call privacy indicator, calljurisdiction, etc.

State 17 of FIG. 4. Upon receiving the call, the phone server 600queries the data store 900 using as a parameter the called phone number800-123-4567. The phone server 600 determines from the query responsethe call is associated with the ACME Air Fare Sale campaign and the callis to be routed to an ACME Air call center 1-805-765-4321 with no calltreatment (e.g., an interactive voice response session, one or more database queries to determine additional information about the customerprospect 400, for example, from data stored in the customer prospectaccount or from signaling information associated with the call, etc.)applied to the call prior to routing.

State 18 of FIG. 4. The phone server 600 originates an outbound call tothe ACME call center 220. Optionally, the outbound call is placed overan IP trunk connection.

State 19 of FIG. 4. Upon detection of answer on the outbound call to theACME call center 220, the phone server 600 bridges the inbound call fromthe customer prospect 400 to the outbound call and answers the inboundcall from the customer prospect 400, 1200. The phone server 600optionally monitors the bridged call for the duration of the call.Optionally, the bridged call is recorded with the recording stored indata store 900 (or a data store associated with phone server(s) 600).

State 20 of FIG. 4. The customer prospect hangs up after interactingwith the call agent. The phone server 600 detects the far-enddisconnect.

State 21 of FIG. 4. Upon detection of the call termination event by thecustomer prospect 400, 1200 (or, on either leg of the bridged call), thephone server 600 terminates the call connection to the call agent 220(or, the other leg of the call).

State 22 of FIG. 4. In this example, information associated with thecall is stored in data store 900 in association with the account of thecustomer prospect 400 including but not limited to some or all of thefollowing: the length of the call, the call termination event type, theorder in which the call legs terminated, a recording of the bridgedcall, a transcription of the calls, any keywords detected in the callwhich may indicate interest by the customer prospect 400 in the sale ofa product and/or service, etc. Optionally, the campaign is credited withcausing an incoming call from a customer prospect 400. Optionally, anaffiliate 200 and/or publisher associated with the email campaign ispaid for the incoming call. Optionally, a lead score is applied and/orcalculated based upon the call and/or the caller interaction.Optionally, the lead score is stored in association with the customerprospect account. Optionally, the inbound call is considered a marketingfunnel state transition and the change of state and/or new state isstored in association with the customer prospect account.

As previously described above, there may be other marketing campaignswhich may include a large population of target customer prospectswherein the customer prospect is associated with a displayable mediaplatform including, for examples, a white paper download, a downloadableapplication, preinstalled application, etc. An example embodiment inthese cases may generally follow the states described above. Forexample, in a downloadable application scenario, State 6 might comprisedownloads and/or updates to an application (such as a messagingapplication capable of displaying advertisements and/or branding).Further in this example, State 8 trigger might be the activation of anapplication.

The methods and processes described herein may have fewer or additionalsteps or states and the steps or states may be performed in a differentorder. Not all steps or states need to be reached. The methods andprocesses described herein may be embodied in, and fully or partiallyautomated via, software code modules executed by one or more generalpurpose computers. The code modules may be stored in any type ofcomputer-readable medium or other computer storage device. Some or allof the methods may alternatively be embodied in whole or in part inspecialized computer hardware. The systems described herein mayoptionally include displays, user input devices (e.g., touchscreen,keyboard, mouse, voice recognition, etc.), network interfaces, etc.

The results of the disclosed methods may be stored in any type ofcomputer data repository, such as relational databases and flat filesystems that use volatile and/or non-volatile memory (e.g., magneticdisk storage, optical storage, EEPROM and/or solid state RAM).

While the phrase “click” may be used with respect to a user selecting acontrol, menu selection, or the like, other user inputs may be used,such as voice commands, text entry, gestures, etc. User inputs may, byway of example, be provided via an interface, such as via text fields,wherein a user enters text, and/or via a menu selection (e.g., a dropdown menu, a list or other arrangement via which the user can check viaa check box or otherwise make a selection or selections, a group ofindividually selectable icons, etc.). When the user provides an input oractivates a control, a corresponding computing system may perform thecorresponding operation. Some or all of the data, inputs andinstructions provided by a user may optionally be stored in a systemdata store (e.g., a database), from which the system may access andretrieve such data, inputs, and instructions. The notifications and userinterfaces described herein may be provided via a Web page, a dedicatedor non-dedicated phone application, computer application, a shortmessaging service message (e.g., SMS, MMS, etc.), instant messaging,email, push notification, audibly, and/or otherwise.

The user terminals described herein may be in the form of a mobilecommunication device (e.g., a cell phone), laptop, tablet computer,interactive television, game console, media streaming device,head-wearable display, networked watch, etc. The terminals mayoptionally include displays, user input devices (e.g., touchscreen,keyboard, mouse, voice recognition, etc.), network interfaces, etc.

Many variations and modifications may be made to the above-describedembodiments, the elements of which are to be understood as being amongother acceptable examples. All such modifications and variations areintended to be included herein within the scope of this disclosure. Theforegoing description details certain embodiments.

It is claimed:
 1. A system comprising: a computing device; a data network interface; non-transitory media storing instructions readable by the computing device, that when executed by the computing device, cause the computing device to: associate a pool of potential system phone numbers with an email marketing campaign, the pool of potential system phone numbers associated by a marketing or tracking system; transmit an email to a plurality of customer prospects associated with the email marketing campaign wherein the email is configured to fetch an image upon presentation to a customer prospect; receive, via the data network interface, an image fetch request from an Internet-connected computing device of a customer prospect from the plurality of customer prospects wherein the image fetch request includes as a parameter an email address of the customer prospect; dynamically select a phone number of the pool of potential system phone numbers based on the image fetch request and the email marketing campaign; generate an image comprising at least the phone number selected from the pool of phone numbers associated with the email marketing campaign; transmit the generated image to the Internet-connected computing device of the customer prospect; and display the generated image comprising at least the phone number selected to the customer prospect.
 2. The system as defined in claim 1, the system instructions further causing the computing device to: after display of the generated image, receive an inbound voice telephone call from the customer prospect via a telephony interface directed to the phone number selected from the pool of phone numbers associated with the email marketing campaign wherein the call includes call signaling information, the call signaling information including at least a calling party phone number; and create a call connection between the inbound call and an outbound call to a call center associated with the email marketing campaign, the created call enabling a party associated with the incoming call and a party associated with the outbound call to communicate.
 3. The system as defined in claim 1, the system instructions further causing the computing device to: configure the email to be transmitted to the plurality of customer prospects associated with the email marketing campaign in a manner which inhibits network image caching.
 4. The system as defined in claim 3, further comprising a telephony interface configured to be coupled to a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN); and wherein the inbound voice telephone call is via the telephony interface.
 5. The system as defined in claim 1, wherein the customer prospect comprises an existing customer.
 6. The system as defined in claim 1, wherein the phone number selected from the pool of phone numbers comprises a phone number local to the customer prospect.
 7. The system as defined in claim 1, wherein the phone number selected from the pool of phone numbers comprises a toll-free phone number.
 8. The system as defined in claim 1, wherein the email address of the customer prospect received via the image fetch request matches an email address configured in the email transmission to the plurality of customer prospects associated with the email marketing campaign.
 9. The system as defined in claim 1, wherein the generated image transmitted to the Internet-connected computing device of the customer prospect is configured to be displayed to the customer prospect via a web-based email user interface.
 10. The system as defined in claim 1, wherein the image fetch request comprises an image Universal Resource Locator (URL) request.
 11. A system comprising: a computing device; a data network interface; non-transitory media storing instructions readable by the computing device, that when executed by the computing device, cause the computing device to: transmit an email to a plurality of customer prospects associated with a marketing campaign wherein the email is configured to fetch an image upon presentation to a customer prospect; receive, via the data network interface, an image fetch request from an Internet-connected computing device of a customer prospect from the plurality of customer prospects associated with the marketing campaign wherein the image fetch request includes as a parameter a customer prospect identifier; dynamically select a phone address of a pool of potential system phone addresses based on the image fetch request and the email marketing campaign, the pool of potential system phone addresses associated by a marketing or tracking system; generate an image comprising at least the phone address selected from the pool of potential system phone addresses associated with the marketing campaign; transmit the generated image to the Internet-connected computing device of the customer prospect; and display the generated image comprising at least the phone address selected to the customer prospect.
 12. The system as defined in claim 11, the system instructions further causing the computing device to: after display of the generated image, receive an inbound voice telephone call from the customer prospect via a telephony interface directed to the phone address selected from the pool of phone addresses associated with the marketing campaign; and create a call connection between the inbound call and an outbound call enabling a calling party associated with the incoming call and a party associated with the outbound call to communicate.
 13. The system as defined in claim 12, further comprising a telephony interface configured to be coupled to a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN); and wherein the inbound voice telephone call is via the telephony interface.
 14. The system as defined in claim 11, the system instructions further causing the computing device to: configure the email to be transmitted to the plurality of customer prospects associated with the email marketing campaign in a manner which inhibits network image caching.
 15. The system as defined in claim 11, wherein the customer prospect comprises an existing customer; and wherein the customer prospect identifier received via the image fetch request comprises an email address.
 16. The system as defined in claim 11, wherein the customer prospect identifier received via the image fetch request comprises an email address and the email address matches an email address configured in the email transmission to the plurality of customer prospects associated with the marketing campaign.
 17. The system as defined in claim 11, wherein the customer prospect identifier received via the image fetch request comprises one of a customer account number; or a unique system generated number; and wherein the generated image transmitted to the Internet-connected computing device of the customer prospect is configured to be displayed to the customer prospect via a web-based email user interface.
 18. A system comprising: a computing device; a data network interface; non-transitory media storing instructions readable by the computing device, that when executed by the computing device, cause the computing device to: receive, via the data network interface, an image fetch request from an Internet-connected computing device of a customer prospect wherein the image fetch request originates at least in part from an application hosted on an Internet-connected computing device and wherein the image fetch request includes a customer prospect identifier; dynamically select a phone address of a pool of potential system phone addresses based on the image fetch request and an email marketing campaign, the pool of potential system phone addresses associated by a marketing or tracking system; generate an image comprising at least the phone address selected from the pool of potential system phone addresses associated with the marketing campaign; transmit the generated image to the Internet-connected computing device of the customer prospect; and display the generated image comprising at least the phone address selected to the customer prospect.
 19. The system as defined in claim 18, the system instructions further causing the computing device to: after display of the generated image, receive an inbound call via a telephony interface directed to the phone address selected from the pool of phone addresses associated with the marketing campaign; and create a call connection between the inbound call and an outbound call enabling a calling party and a called party to communicate.
 20. The system as defined in claim 19, further comprising a telephony interface configured to be coupled to a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN); wherein the inbound voice telephone call is via the telephony interface. 